FUNDACIÓ MARKETS, ORGANIZATIONS AND VOTES IN ECONOMICS

Their core work

FUNDACIÓ MOVE is an economics research foundation based in Cerdanyola del Vallès, near Barcelona, focused on empirical and theoretical research at the intersection of markets, organizations, and political economy. Their work spans microeconomic questions — how individuals influence each other through peer effects and how social networks form endogenously — and macroeconomic policy questions about fiscal consolidation, unemployment, and labor mobility across the Euro Area. In H2020, they served as host institution for Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellows, meaning they attracted internationally mobile researchers and provided an environment for original economics research. Their name ("Markets, Organizations and Votes") signals an unusually broad mandate that covers industrial organization, firm behavior, and public choice economics alongside labor and macro topics.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

Their H2020 trajectory shows a clear shift from microeconomic foundations toward macroeconomic policy relevance. The earlier PEERS project (2015–2017) was rooted in social economics — peer interactions and network formation — which is theoretically driven and relatively abstract. EuroCrisisMove (2018–2020) moved squarely into policy-relevant macroeconomics, addressing the Euro Area debt crisis's impact on unemployment and cross-border labor flows. This suggests the organization broadened its scope from pure microeconomic theory toward applied policy analysis at the European level, possibly tracking the research interests of the fellows they were able to attract in each period.

FUNDACIÓ MOVE appears to be moving toward EU-level economic policy research — labor markets, fiscal policy, and macroeconomic crisis analysis — which positions them well as a host or partner for research addressing European governance and social cohesion questions.

How they like to work

FUNDACIÓ MOVE has exclusively coordinated MSCA Individual Fellowships, a funding scheme that does not involve multi-partner consortia — it funds a single researcher hosted at one institution. This means their 0 consortium partners is an artifact of the funding type, not evidence of isolation. What it does reveal is that they are an attractive host for incoming researchers rather than a consortium-builder: their role is to provide the intellectual environment, supervision, and institutional support for individual research projects. Organizations considering them as a partner should expect a research-focused counterpart with strong mentorship capacity rather than experience managing large collaborative networks.

FUNDACIÓ MOVE has no formal consortium partner relationships through H2020, which is expected given that both grants are MSCA Individual Fellowships requiring no consortium. Their actual academic network likely runs through the Barcelona economics community and international connections of the fellows they hosted, but this is not visible in the CORDIS data.

What sets them apart

FUNDACIÓ MOVE occupies a specific niche as a dedicated economics research foundation — not a university department, not a think tank — covering the full triangle of markets, organizations, and political economy from a single institutional base near Barcelona. Their consistent ability to host MSCA Individual Fellows (a highly competitive grant) signals that the international economics research community regards them as a credible host, which is meaningful for partners seeking to bring in external talent. Their combination of microeconomic network theory and macroeconomic policy analysis is relatively rare and positions them as a potential bridge between academic economics and EU policy research consortia.

Highlights from their portfolio

• EuroCrisisMove
  The most recent and largest-funded project (EUR 170,122), addressing one of the defining EU policy challenges — post-crisis fiscal adjustment and its effects on unemployment and labor mobility across the Euro Area.
• PEERS
  The foundation's first H2020 project, demonstrating early capacity to attract MSCA fellows in social economics and establishing their credentials as a research host in the highly competitive individual fellowship scheme.